Serge Ferrari: Soltissim Tool - Python Scripting

France

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IES Consulting used python scripting to develop the bespoke Soltissim Tool, enabling Serge Ferrari customers to quickly assess and optimise the impact of their various fabric products on building heating and cooling loads.

Key Facts

  • New tool developed by IES Consulting using Python Scripting
  • Bespoke tool to assess/optimise the impact of Serge Ferrari fabrics on building heating and cooling loads & solar gains
  • Approx. 13,000 simulations performed in IESVE
  • English and French versions available

Serge Ferrari is a world leader in flexible composite material technology, providing lightweight, durable and recyclable solutions to meet the functional and aesthetic requirements of sectors as diverse as building, industry, furniture and yachting. Recently, they have worked with IES Consulting to develop a unique fabric analysis tool – Soltissim – which calculates the impact of their various fabric products on building heating and cooling loads.

Using the VE Python API, IES Consulting specialise in designing customised scripts tailored around clients’ specific workflow needs, helping to automate processes and maximise productivity. This particular project required the team to run a total of approximately 13,000 simulations for Serge Ferrari in IESVE before extracting the data to create the bespoke tool.

The simulations run by the consultants took into consideration a range of factors including: building location, based on ASHRAE Climate zone classification; building use type (office, school or hospital) with building templates imported from the ASHRAE 90.1-2007 standard; the percentage of window to wall ratio; glazing type; fabric type and colour; and, finally, installation type.

The resulting Soltissim interface, which is available in both English and French versions, offers a quick and streamlined workflow to assess and optimise building heating and cooling loads arising from incorporating various Serge Ferarri fabrics in a building’s design. Through a series of simple clicks, the user makes their selection from a list of pre-defined inputs and the tool will generate a comparison of heating, cooling and total loads, as well as solar gains, across the building, both with and without the specific fabric type selected by the user.

The tool provides user friendly visualisation of results in tabular and graphical formats, providing an overview of variations in heating loads, cooling loads and solar gains for buildings and rooms on an annual or monthly basis, as well as an option to visualise operative temperatures for various fabric types. Users are then able to generate standardised PDF reports – either in the form of a simplified 2-page summary or a more detailed 4-page summary – showing the selected inputs, annual and monthly energy results. The new interface will undoubtedly be of great benefit to the client, offering huge productivity (and therefore cost) savings when performing future heating and cooling loads analyses for different building fabrics in IESVE.

"We chose IES, a world leader in thermal simulation, to develop a tool that will allow our customers to estimate the energy savings associated with the use of our solar protection products at the building level.

Through the Soltissim tool, we wanted to demonstrate the benefits provided from using our products and translate them in terms of energy consumption and costs, in order to choose the most suitable solar protection solution.

Soltissim is a decision support tool, which can be used both for new buildings or for renovation."

Jérémy Partouche, Business Group Manager Solar Protection, Serge Ferrari

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